Extreme heat warning in effect through Sunday

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

By Matthew Stolle, Rochester Post-Bulletin

This article was originally published in 2010. 


       They marched up the church aisle
to the strains of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" dressed in their
trademark white robes and conical-shaped hats. At their head was a
man carrying an American flag.

      The robed men lined up in front of the church, and once the
singing had ended, the leader of the procession turned to the
church's pastor and thanked him for his efforts in promoting a
"real Americanism." The Klansman then presented the pastor with a
purse in token of the group's appreciation, kneeled and prayed.

      It may be hard to believe now, but such was the scene that
unfolded in the Old Concord Christian Church in Dodge County as
described in a Sept. 12, 1924, story in the Owatonna Journal
Chronicle. The eyewitness account also offers a glimpse into an
all-but-forgotten aspect of Minnesota history: The rise of the Klu
Klux Klan in southeastern Minnesota and across the state and
nation.

      The Klan was looking to preserve "its way of life and
supremacy," said Nancy Vaillancourt, a Blooming Prairie librarian
who has spent the last seven years unearthing the history of the
Klan's little-known resurgence in the area and is co-authoring an
article about the Klan in this month's edition of Minnesota History
Magazine.

Help MPR News cover racism and acts of aggression against marginalized communities

      "They didn't want to be bothered by other groups. They wanted
to be the ones who were the leaders, who were the dominant forces
for society," she said about a group made up of people who were
white, working-class and Protestant.

      Though commonly thought of as a phenomenon of the post-Civil War
South, the Klan also briefly flourished in early decades of the
20th century. And for a time, in the southeastern Minnesota area
where secret Klan meetings, parades and cross-burnings were
occasionally staged.


      In its heyday in the mid-1920s, the Klu Klux Klan had chapters
chartered in cities throughout the region, including Waseca,
Kenyon, Dodge Center and Rochester.

The state of hate in Minnesota

      Its revival was part of the founding of the second Klan, a
phenomenon spurred by post-World War I anxieties. The North was
industrializing, attracting waves of immigrants from southern and
eastern Europe as well as Southern blacks and whites. The
combustible social tensions that mix created fueled the rise of the
Klan, including in southeast Minnesota.


      It's not something you'll see touted by civic promoters, but
Albert Lea reportedly hosted the first Ku Klux Klan parade in
Minnesota in August 1923.


      Vaillancourt also said Red Wing was the site of several cross
burnings on the bluffs in 1923, along with fireworks displays.
There was even a women's group in Owatonna called the WKKK, and the
Steele County organization hosted three straight state Klan
conclaves in the mid-1920s.


      At its height, the Klan claimed 100,000 members in Minnesota in
1924, although some dispute those numbers as inflated given the
Klan's tendency to exaggerate its size.

      Much of this unsavory chapter would likely have remained locked
away in forgotten files and dusty archives if not for the sleuthing
of Vaillancourt and co-author Elizabeth Dorsey.


      Some don't appreciate Vaillancourt shining a light on this
sordid history.

      When the local KKK's activities were mentioned in the Owatonna
People's Press as part of the city's sesquicentennial celebration,
some readers called to complain, saying it wasn't true. But
Vaillancourt says she is proud to have uncovered an aspect of
history that most would sooner forget.

      "By trying to forget, they're not learning from the past. Yes,
maybe we're forcing them to look at it. Maybe they don't want to
look at it, but it happened, and I think it needs to be known,"
she said.

      Vaillancourt said her first brush with stories of the KKK's
existence in the area came as a young girl. Her German-speaking
grandfather told her that Klan members in Stockton used
intimidation and coercion to keep their immigrant neighbors from
speaking German. It was during World War I, America was at war with
Germany, and both her grandfather and uncle saw Klan crosses burn
in Stockton, she said.

      But the war was only part of the reason for the group's rebirth.
Another factor was the movie "Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith's
silent film and a Hollywood blockbuster, which cast the Klan as
heroic, noble and a protector of feminine virtue.

      The Minnesota version of the Klan was shaped by its own
preoccupations and prejudices. Area Klansmen were less focused on
oppressing blacks, of which there were few in Minnesota at the
time, than Catholics, Jews, foreigners and anyone else they viewed
as threat to their way of life.


      Although undeniably racist and anti-Catholic in character, the
Minnesota Klan appears to have been a less violent entity than the
lawless Klan that rampaged across the deep South. Vaillancourt's
research uncovered no lynchings attributed to Klan groups in
Minnesota. With its state and national structure, the Klan operated
in many ways as a fraternal organization.

      "They had family organizations. They tried to make it a whole
social group," Vaillancourt said.


      Much as it tried, though, the Klan was never able to shed the
negative southern associations attached to it. Apologists sought to
portray the Klan as misunderstood, a victim of dated societal
attitudes, but to little avail.

      Vaillancourt said groups targeted by the Klan fought back.
Catholics organized boycotts of Klan businesses and worked to
expose its members as bigots.

      Like many fraternal groups, the Klan wrapped itself in an aura
of mystery and intrigue by holding secret meetings. Klan opponents
worked to unmask them.


      Once, when a group of opponents learned that Klan members were
meeting in a nearby school, they drove to the school and waited
outside for the conclave to end. When the Klan members emerged, the
drivers flashed on their headlights and captured them in a flood of
light.

      The demise of the Klan was also accelerated by the bad behavior
of its own leaders. When a Klan leader in Indiana raped a woman and
left her for dead, he boasted that no jury would convict a Klan
member, Vaillancourt said.

      Public opinion turned against the Klan. By the 1930s, the group
was a spent force, its few remaining adherents meeting, if at all,
underground.

      Vaillancourt said she and her co-author would like to continue
their research with an eye perhaps to writing a book.


      "The goal of the Klan was to have a group in every county in
every state. What I would like to do is reach every county in
Minnesota (to determine) which counties had active Klans," she
said.

Associated Press

Author

The Minnesota version of the Klan was shaped by its own preoccupations and prejudices, were less focused on
oppressing blacks, than Catholics, Jews, foreigners and anyone else they viewed as threat to their way of life.

From the past: Klan's time in Minnesota

Go Deeper.

Like this?